Our sightseeing or lack thereof

Another thing that I had no idea about, is that we would have very little time to actually see Moscow. (Well except by car, and trust me we saw a ton of that!) What I wasn't expecting is how much of our day was taken up with the very important orphanage visits and driving to and from those visits. I know Chris and I had two orphanages to visit, but even if we didn't we would visit one orphanage twice a day. Typically we met our driver at 9am or 9:30am, and we would not get back to our apartment until 8:30 at night. We would have a few hours in the middle to grab a quick lunch, but not really enough to do all the tourist things.

So, again if you are heading over there I would recommend building in a day before or after for your sight seeing. We did get a chance to visit Old Arabat street, and I am insanely jealous of those of you who got to visit during warmer weather. I can just picture how much fun we would have going from shop to shop. (Becky I'm thinking of you, now!) I loved the woman who helped us numerous times at our favorite souvenir shop. (It's practically next to Starbucks on the opposite side of the street as Hard Rock Cafe.) Her name is Irina, and she was helpful, and not pushy. When we go back, we will definitely stop in to buy something from her and say "hello". I can't say enough about how much I liked her and her souvenir shop. So if you visit her I think the store is called "Arabatskaya Lavitsa Souvenirs" tell her we said Hi!

Hard Rock Cafe is a great place to eat. They spoke English, and their chicken fajitas were really good. We also ate at My My (pronounced Moo Moo and it has a big cow in front of it). I was pretty nervous to eat there as it's mainly native Russia folks who frequent the place, though they do have some English translation menus. I was glad I went, even though I felt like a scared rabbit. (Chris is sooo much more adventuresome than I am!) We also ate a TGI Fridays, and it was just okay. I'd chose Hard Rock over that if given the chance again. Also Chris ate at a really nice Russian restaurant, and I'll get the name to you. He wants to go back with me on trip 2.

We never made it down to the Red Square, as the day we were going to go, the weather turned really cold, and it started to rain. So, we will build it into the next trip. We stayed on New Arabat Street, and it was great! Everything was fairly close, (10 minute walk) like Starbucks, Fridays, Hard Rock and even a McDonalds. Next trip we also want to visit the huge Gum mall!

Next post I'll share our experience at the grocery store...... :-)